About

Douglas Campbell is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a primary research interest in the life and theology of the apostle Paul. His work emphasizes an understanding of salvation informed by apocalyptic perspectives, contrasting with traditional views of justification or salvation-history. Campbell is interested in methodological contributions to Pauline analysis from various disciplinary angles, including Greco-Roman epistolary and rhetorical theory, as well as insights into human networking and conflict-resolution derived from sociology. He has authored several significant publications, including Pauline Dogmatics: The Triumph of God's Love, Paul: An Apostle's Journey, Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification in Paul, and The Quest for Paul's Gospel: A Suggested Strategy. Additionally, a collection of essays analyzing his critical approach to justification has been published. Beyond his research, Campbell is the co-director of Duke Divinity School's Prison Program and oversees the Certificate in Prison Studies and the Certificate in Missional Innovation, contributing to the school's engagement with social justice and community outreach.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Sociology
• Theology
• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Art
• Environmental ethics
• Religious studies
• Law
• Literature
• Linguistics
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• Paul’s Account of the Future: A Case Study in Pauline Dogmatics

  2022-06-07

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  This essay, tutored by Barth’s relentlessly christocentric method, evaluates the eschatological scope of Paul’s soteriology, both as stated and implied, on the assumption that Paul when pressed is also relentlessly christocentric. It begins by locating Paul’s position vis-à-vis his Jewish peers. Like the author of 1 Maccabees, Paul espoused a limited resurrection from the dead, expecting only the followers of Jesus to be resurrected and all others to remain dead or to be annihilated (so 1 Thess 4:13–18). A question now arises, however, concerning the limited scope of this anticipated resurrection. Paul’s universal christology implies rather the resurrection of all of humanity. It is clearly warranted in Paul that God both intends all of his created people to live in eternal communion with him (e.g. Rom 8:29), and possesses the capacity to effect this loving universal purpose (Rom 8:37–39). Paul’s texts describing a future judgment, carefully read, suggest an evaluative and restorative process as against a soteriological and potentially exclusionary event (e.g., 1 Cor 3:10–15). In further support of this act of Sachkritik, some of Paul’s key texts explicitly rebut common objections to universalism. In Romans 5:15–17 Paul forestalls functional Marcionism—the notion that Adam’s work is more wide-ranging and decisive than the work of the creator, Jesus. And in Romans 9–11 Paul argues ultimately for the triumph of God’s purposes over any freely-chosen recalcitrance on the part of unbelieving Jews (so esp. 11:27), a conclusion directly transferable from Israel to all of humanity. These Pauline inferences echo the claims Barth makes concerning the universal significance of Christ for the future of humanity in “The Humanity of God” (written in 1956).

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• Paul’s Future Eschatology: His Notion of Resurrection

  Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht eBooks · 2021

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Theology
  • Environmental ethics
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• The Future of New Testament Theology, or, What Should Devout Modern Bible Scholarship Look Like?

  Religions · 2021 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Philosophy
  • Theology
  • Literature

  Consideration of the nature of New Testament Theology (NTT) necessitates an account of theology or “God-talk”. Karl Barth grasped that all valid God-talk begins with God’s self-disclosure through Jesus and the Spirit, which people acknowledge and reflect on. Abandoning this starting point by way of “Foundationalism”—that is, resorting to any alternative basis for God-talk—leads to multiple destructive epistemological and cultural consequences. The self-disclosure of the triune God informs the use of the Bible by the church. The Bible then functions in terms of ethics and witness. It grounds the church’s ethical language game. Creative readings here are legitimate. The New Testament (NT) also mediates a witness to Jesus, which implies an historical dimension. However, it is legitimate to affirm that Jesus was resurrected (see 1 Cor 15:1–9), which liberates the devout modern Bible scholar in relation to history. The historical readings generated by such scholars have value because the self-disclosing God is deeply involved with particularity. These readings can be added to the archive of scriptural readings used by the church formationally. Ultimately, then, all reading of the NT is theological (or should be) and in multiple modes. NTT focuses our attention on the accuracy of the God-talk operative within any historical reconstruction, and on its possible subversion, which are critical matters.

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• The Provenance of Philippians: A Response to the Analyses of Michael Flexsenhar, Heike Omerzu, Angela Standhartinger and Cédric Brélaz

  Journal for the Study of the New Testament · 2021-02-05

  article1st authorCorresponding

  A critical synthesis of the arguments made by Flexsenhar, Omerzu, Standhartinger and Brélaz, concerning the provenance of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, suggests: (1) ‘the whole of the praetorium’ referenced in 1.13 is a group of people working in an official provincial building, hence (2) in view of Paul’s incarceration awaiting imminent trial, this is probably in a provincial capital, (3) where a group of imperial slaves, who, following attested practice, identify themselves as ‘a household of Caesar’ (4.22), and originally from Philippi, have migrated to join the local congregation. Further critical consideration suggests, moreover, that, although Ephesus is a plausible location for the explanation of this data, Corinth is a still more powerful and economic explanation of this and related data points.

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• Philippians and Philemon

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2020 · 7 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Epistemology
  • Computer Science

  Comparing the letters to the Philippians and to Philemon brings to light important aspects of Paul's thought and practice – in particular, how certain key theological commitments are practically enacted when they encounter situational differences. Capturing a sense of what Paul is doing in these letters is best done by grasping what the problems were that he was addressing and considering how the letters deploy a set of rhetorical strategies to resolve those problems. The specific contextualized instantiation of Jesus-like relationships in Colossae is clearly different from its instantiation in Philippi; but the underlying strategy of mobilizing a story of Jesus (both conceptually by letter, as well as directly and personally through a disciple or envoy) remains the same. Paul clearly believes that Jesus, rightly understood and rightly followed, makes a difference to the basic issue that tends to concern all communities, namely, how people relate to one another.

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• Mass Incarceration: Pauline Problems and Pauline Solutions

  Interpretation A Journal of Bible and Theology · 2018-06-12 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The growing realization that the United States today is characterized by mass incarceration has begun to influence the interpretation of the Bible. This essay will focus on the influence of Paul’s letters on the court and penal system in the United States, especially the pervasive emphasis on justification (Rom 1–4) by which our penal system operates. This is followed by discussion of a more constructive model for restorative justice, based on the compassionate God in Romans 5. The essay suggests how Paul’s own incarcerations inform relational models on which ministry among prisoners should be conducted today.

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• Panoramic Lutheranism and apocalyptic ambivalence: an appreciative critique of N. T. Wright's<i>Paul and the Faithfulness of God</i>

  Scottish Journal of Theology · 2016-11-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The basic agenda and resulting architecture of N. T. Wright's reconstruction of Paul's theology in Paul and the Faithfulness of God are a dramatic and brilliant break with most previous analyses and an important step forward. But closer analysis suggests that his project also contains some serious problems. First, it is not well executed: there are basic problems of method and exegesis with Wright's manner of reading Paul's texts. Second, Lutheranism and various modern dichotomies have not been purged sufficiently thoroughly from Wright's reconstruction of Paul's thought, resulting in tensions of truly tectonic proportions. One is left with the impression of a magnificent venture foundering in its haste – haste perhaps extending back to the venture's original design, when certain contradictory tendencies needed to be confronted and solved, but were not.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Apocalyptic Epistemology

  Fortress Press eBooks · 2016-06-03 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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• The Current Crisis:

  2014-11-27 · 41 citations

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• Connecting the Dots:

  2014-11-27

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
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Frequent coauthors

• Anthony Brumby

  2 shared

• Jean Aubert

  Délégation Paris 7

  2 shared

• Anderson Paul

  Grace (United States)

  2 shared

• Angata Kiyohiko

  2 shared

• Marit W. Anthonsen

  Norwegian University of Science and Technology

  2 shared

• Marie-Paule Brocard

  2 shared

• Thierry Arnould

  University of Namur

  2 shared

• Michael J. Butler

  2 shared